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Include rules for mass combat between armies, both for resolving two armies fighting and battles where the PCs can play a role.

Provide rules for sea battles.

Provide critical hit and critical failure tables.

Design rules for using armor as damage reduction, along with rules for hit locations.

Introduce rules for lingering wounds, a gritty approach to health and well being.

Include alternative magic systems.

Provide rules for horror and sanity, along with other rules to change D&D's genre.

The above rules will make me very, very happy. The more I read from the devs, the more excited I get for the future of DDN.

With the advanced rules, we assume that players and DMs are experienced with RPGs, know what they're doing, and want something different. This part of the game is where we throw open the controls over the system and let DMs go crazy. You can think of it as 3E's Unearthed Arcana but with the game designed from the ground up to absorb (or even encourage) core rules hacking.

LOVE IT!

Dials are rules that change the core but in a predictable way.

After a previous article said that modules wouldn't change core elements, this was very welcome news.

Some advanced rules go back and change a key element of the core system in a fundamental way. With these rules, we expect that everyone at the table will have to revise their characters in some way to account for the new law of physics, such as it is, that a DM is using. For instance, armor as DR, hit locations, and a variant approach to magic fall into this category.

Very glad to hear this.

So, what sorts of rules are we looking at building? The list is a little fluid, but here's what we want to focus on. It's kind of a laundry list, and there's no guarantee that everything will be ready at launch, so it's more of a wish list.

• Include tactical combat rules that allow the option to add more miniatures gaming elements to combat. This would include a grid, options for facing, rules for more detailed zones of control, and so on.
• Provide a system that emphasizes refreshing resources by encounter instead of by day. The nice thing about our approach is that since this is an option, we don't have to settle for half measures. Everything can be encounter-based, even hit points.
• Create rules for giving mechanical weight to character motivation, personality traits, and so on.
• Provide a structure for a more story-based approach to D&D, treating the DM and players as co-authors of a narrative with a specific focus.
• Use action points, fate points, or a similar meta-mechanic as a reward or a way to give players a mechanical option to boost their power for a specific moment.
• Create variant XP rules, using XP as a way for a DM to place the emphasis on fighting, interaction, exploration, finding treasure, and so on.
• Add in rules for firearms, including both a historical take and one driven by fantasy.
• Include rules for mass combat between armies, both for resolving two armies fighting and battles where the PCs can play a role.
• Design rules for speeding up battles that involve lots of monsters and the characters.
• Provide rules for sea battles.
• Create rules for realms management and strongholds.
• Design rules for finding ingredients and reagents to craft magic items.
• Provide critical hit and critical failure tables.
• Design rules for using armor as damage reduction, along with rules for hit locations.
• Introduce rules for lingering wounds, a gritty approach to health and well being.
• Include alternative magic systems.
• Provide rules for horror and sanity, along with other rules to change D&D's genre.

It's a big list, and probably more than we can fit into what we hope to provide. At the end of the day, the advanced rules are likely to be more of an ethos or an attitude that casts the DM as a game designer who can alter the mechanics or add to them to suit the specific needs of a campaign.

Jan 27, 2013 -- 9:22PM, Crimson_Concerto wrote:

Jan 27, 2013 -- 9:10PM, SleepsInTraffic wrote:

Neat article basically everything I was expecting...Though I hope alternate casting systems can all sit on the same table at the same time.  That is a big one for me.  If someone on my table likes spell points and someone likes vancian I want them both to be able to sit on the same table. 

I definitely agree with this.

I also endorse that sentiment, 100%.